This application is related to Japanese application No. HEI 9(1997)-252263, filed on Sep. 17, 1997 whose priority is claimed under 35 USC xc2xa7119, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference in its entirety.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a combination terminal unit and, more particularly, to a combination terminal unit capable of inputting and outputting various types of data such as TV broadcasting data, telephone data, FAX data and interactive communication data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Combination terminal units have recently been developed which are capable of transmitting and receiving various types of data such as TV broadcasting data, TV phone data, voice phone data and FAX data.
Some of the combination terminal units are capable of receiving a TV phone call even during reception of a TV broadcast. For example, a TV phone system with a TV broadcast receiver is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. HEI 7(1995)-30872. The TV phone system is designed to selectively receive a phone call only from any of preliminarily registered calling parties or from any of high priority calling parties among the preliminarily registered parties upon arrival of the phone call during reception of a TV broadcast.
Conventional media such as TV broadcast, radio broadcast and newspapers unilaterally provide information to ordinary people. It has recently become possible to obtain necessary information on demand from media such as FAX information services, PC communications services, Internet communications services and pay telephone information services (e.g., Dial Q2 in Japan) through bilateral data communications.
Connection and operation procedures for information acquisition from the media vary depending upon the media to be connected. Further, the quality and quantity of information transmitted through the media vary depending upon the media. Therefore, it is difficult to obtain desired information and, if some information can be obtained, it is necessary to check the obtained information.
Retrieval procedures for retrieving necessary information from a tremendous amount of information also vary depending upon the media. This imposes a heavy burden on users.
In the combination terminal unit, various types of information should be processed in large quantity by utilizing single data receiving and displaying means. Therefore, if information from one medium arrives during reception of information inputted from another medium, the information reception may be interrupted. Conversely, the information reception may prevent reception of urgent information. That is, various information inputs may conflict with each other in the combination terminal unit.
Further, it is desirable to view real-time image information upon arrival thereof, even if other information is displayed on a display of the combination terminal unit, by displaying the image information in parallel.
In accordance with the present invention, there is provided a combination terminal unit which comprises: inputting device for inputting a retrieval item and an option item; line connecting means capable of establishing a line connection to any of a plurality of media; storage device for storing therein a plurality of retrieval information entities; display device for displaying any of the retrieval information entities; and retrieval controller for, if a retrieval item is inputted by the inputting device, reading out retrieval information entities relevant to the retrieval item from the storage device and displaying the information entities thus read out on the display device and, if a particular retrieval information entity is selected from the displayed retrieval information entities by the inputting device, actuating the line connecting means to establish a line connection to a location of the particular retrieval information entity.
With this combination terminal unit, a user can access desired information by performing a retrieval operation without considering the location of the information.